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Muscle Building and BodybuildingTopics related to muscle building, bodybuilding, including training and fullbody workouts. If you are looking for great advice on gaining muscle this forum is for you.

came across some new info today about training frequency and how often you should train each body part a week.
Im now wondering weather I should switch to a full body 3 times a week 5x5, or stick with my push/pul/legs 5x5 split.

Studies show that the average muscle repairs within 48 hours, therefor in theory i'd be recruiting more muscle fibers if I switched to doing full body, 3 times a week.
I'd be leaving 48 hours rest before I trained the muscle group again, as apposed to leaving an entire weak before I hit the same muscle group again with my current split.

How do I determine which to stick with?
It looks like I could be producing more muscle gains if I train more frequently in the week but I'm not sure.
Should I train if I'm still sore?

The three day a week full-body has proven to probably be the best routine for beginners, it gives you the most opportunities to be progressive. I actually prefer a three day a week push/pull or upper/lower for beginners, or possibly a two day a week full-body, but I tend to err on the side of recovery a bit more than others. But really, 10 years from now it will make little difference. Do what you enjoy and you will put your energy into it because consistency is more important than the split you use. Like I said in the other posts, Get the big things right and don't worry so much about the little things; use big compound lifts, put in a lot of effort, be progressive, be consistent, and eat towards your goals. Learning more is a great tool as long as you don't let it change your routine or start questioning the basics. It's been said many times that consistency on a bad routine is far better than inconsistency on the best routine.

The full body 5x5 is a great routine and you'l get used to it quickly. You can start by reducing your weights a little and taking 1-2 weeks to work back up to current levels just to be sure you don't hammer yourself too hard out of the gate.

What is does your current routine look like?

If you are doing a lot of assistance moves/volume now, you might need to reduce some of that if you switch (depending on your work capacity).

Also, is your primary goal pure strength in the SQ, DL, BP, MP or are you less concerned about weights lifted and focused more on pure bodybuilding?

__________________"...strength is built one recovery day at a time..." -OMP

The full body 5x5 is a great routine and you'l get used to it quickly. You can start by reducing your weights a little and taking 1-2 weeks to work back up to current levels just to be sure you don't hammer yourself too hard out of the gate.

What is does your current routine look like?

If you are doing a lot of assistance moves/volume now, you might need to reduce some of that if you switch (depending on your work capacity).

Also, is your primary goal pure strength in the SQ, DL, BP, MP or are you less concerned about weights lifted and focused more on pure bodybuilding?

Based on your routine, I think you'd transition to 5x5 full body very well.

Soldier is right...more than one day/week is better for serious strength and size.

Glutes are the biggest single muscle and legs are half your body weight (or should be).

I did years of body building and got some shape out of it but when I switched to a fullbody 5x5, squatting 2-3 times/week and deadlifting once (plus RDLs) I packed on the most mass in the least time and set all my personal bests in 3-4 months.

If you want both, break through strength barriers with basic moves...that's where the mass is.

__________________"...strength is built one recovery day at a time..." -OMP

Oh ya, I kind of glanced right over this part. Soreness means very little other than you are just sore and getting used to the exercises. BtB (Steve) recently put up a good post about soreness and DOMs, but I'm too lazy to go look for it. You can train when you are sore, in fact some training will help relieve the soreness, as long as the soreness isn't part of an injury.

It basically said that soreness was an indicator of connective tissue inflammation and not related to muscle tissue inflammation. Bottom line, soreness doesn't mean a muscle isn't recovered and can't perform. It simply means the connective tissue is still recovering.

So, it's ok to train, because a muscle can still benefit from it. With that said, if you are consistently sore on Wednesday from Monday's workout, then it might be beneficial to use more of an HLM approach just to give the joints and connective tissue more recovery time while still working the muscles.